September 20, 2010

Another Scene From A Marriage

SCENE: The Carroll Gardens apartment that the proprietor of this blog, "GK," shares with His Lovely Wife ("HLW"). Living room.

(GK, sitting on the sofa, closes his laptop computer and sighs. HLW, who's been straightening out by the entrance to the kitchen, raises her head.)

HLW: What's wrong?

GK: Nothing...jeez, these knuckleheads over at Wells' site, complaining about The Town, how the central romance between the Rebecca Hall and Ben Affleck characters isn't "plausible." Goofy. I mean, granted, it's a genre convention, but...(shrugs)

HLW: Yeah, why go to the movies in the first place, right?

GK: Yeah, I left a comment...if these yo-yos put their money where there mouth was, they could make Frederic Wiseman as rich as George Lucas...because, you know, Frederic Wiseman movies, they're really plausible...

(GK gets up from the sofa, starts getting his gym bag packed)

GK: And of course these guys, like everybody else, only pull out the plausibility card when it suits them to...in this case, The Town is a pretty easy target, since you can nitpick from the accents down if you're so inclined. Of course you have to be so inclined, really have it in for the picture.

HLW: Right. Like you were with Notting Hill.

(GK looks up.)

GK: What?

HLW: Notting Hill. You said it was "implausible." You said no way would a famous actress ever fall for an obscure book dealer, even if he did look and speak like Hugh Grant.

GK: I said that?

HLW: You did. I think you were having some sort of Julia Roberts problem at the time.

GK: I don't think I said that. I think I said that nobody would give that stupid speech...

HLW: "I'm just a girl...looking at a boy...and asking him to love me?"

GK: Right. Which is a stupid speech. And, you know, I like a lot of Richard Curtis' writing...

HLW: I know, I know. 'He wrote 'The Skinhead Hamlet.'" Yes, that's very fair-minded of you. Anyway. You did say that. But you also did say that no way would a famous actress fall for, etcetera.

(GK clears his throat, finishes packing gym bag, zips it up.)

GK: You ready?

HLW: (smiling enigmatically) Yup.

(They exit,and go down three flights of stairs in silence, then out the front door. On the stoop, GK pauses.)

GK: You know, there's a difference between being merely implausible, and dealing in pernicious bullshit.

(HLW considers this pronouncement.)

HLW: That may be so.

GK: And I think Notting Hill might have crossed that line.

HLW: Perhaps.

GK: So there you have it.

HLW: Okay.

GK: But I'll admit, you almost had me there.

HLW: I could see you getting a little wobbly. The knees were going.

GK: Yes. Very nearly a TKO.

HLW: (smiling enigmatically, again) Yeah, you really pulled a rabbit out of a hat there, sport.

The only time "implausibility" bothers me in an onscreen romantic relationship is when it's really just a disguise for ego -- all these star-driven vehicles where we're supposed to believe that, oh no, of COURSE that incredibly lovely and intelligent young woman is going to fall for a 70-year-old comic/75-year-old-action-star/triple-chinned slacker. Who WOULDN'T?

But implausibility in offscreen relationships? In which even a cranky critic can find someone to love? I'm grateful for that kind of far-fetched idea daily...

As I've never seen a picture of YLW, I like to imagine Nick & Nora in these sorts of things. And when I do, I tend to either forget or stop caring about what they're talking about, and just enjoy the wonderful couple-specific banter that married people can have.

I've been reading the book (and why it's taken me so long is something between me and my creator) and my problem isn't that she'd fall for MacRay, but that MacRay would pursue her in the first place. It's a pretty dumb thing for a guy like him to do.

But this hasn't impeded my enjoyment of the book at all, really. Initially, a little bit, but the implausibles have played out with a lot of tension and even logic, so why bitch?

I'd say that anything that takes you out of a movie is a reason to complain about it. The question then becomes, was that something an irritant specifically for you (as most of Wells' are) or something deeply ingrained within the film that the filmmakers should have known better to include.

@ Jeff: Point taken. And with a picture as setting-specific as "The Town," those Bostonians who are so inclined will likely discover a lot of nits. On the other hand, there is the willing refusal to suspend disbelief at work with a lot of the complaints you see in certain venues. And for all that, it's more legit to complain about what's taken you out of the completed movie than to bitch about how many takes somebody told you a director made his actors go through, which is such TOTAL bullshit that my wife and I never disagree on it...

"...it's more legit to complain about what's taken you out of the completed movie than to bitch about how many takes somebody told you a director made his actors go through, which is such TOTAL bullshit that my wife and I never disagree on it..."

The main suspension of disbelief issue in Notting Hill was Anna Scott's excessively thin-skinned reaction to tabloid headlines about her love life, around which crucial plot points turn. Given how long Anna has been famous, she would be inured to foolish tabloid stories - it would be near-impossible for her to function at her level of fame otherwise. The romance itself was fine.

Aside from the wince-making "I'm just a girl" speech, it's quite a nice movie, and if you're looking for true perniciousness and unbelievability you have only to look to Love Actually, or Curtis Unchained.

I tend to think a film is allowed one major conceit (a man has superpowers, etc.), but after that the conceit police come out - especially if the authors have written themselves into a hole and change the rules to dig themselves out. But the conceit can be questioned if it becomes too easy to imagine the better movie and/or what the conceit says about its makers. The conceit of Pretty Woman is that a rich businessman falls in love with a hooker (with a heart Glenn Beck could hawk). My problem isn't the meet cute, it's the story they tell out of it.

Doesn't it make a difference whether plausibility is a movie's major concern/selling point in the first place? I never get worked up about it in genre pieces -- romances, crime flicks, whatever -- unless something happens that violates the rules of the movie's world, not the one we live in. And people who have "plausibility" issues with INCEPTION, say, just mystify me.

On the other hand, I can go on about the inaccuracies, short cuts and misrepresentations in the sainted SAVING PRIVATE RYAN -- a movie ostentatiously claiming to show us How It Really Was -- until the cows come home. At times, this has reduced anyone in the vicinity to imitating mooing.

@ Claire K: Poetic license, dear. And perhaps an implied suggestion that you call me "Sport." Although why I would suggest such a thing is beyond me. Might as well ask you to call me "Butch" or something. THAT doesn't make sense...in fact it's downright implausible...

I would wager it all depends on what kind of "Sport" you are. The obvious association is Harvey Keitel in TAXI DRIVER. I'm certain that wasn't the kind of "Sport" you were thinking of.

I'd like to think of the John Glover's Alan Raimy used the name in 52 PICK-UP. Raimy's "That's mighty white of you" line is one I use at random quite often. Usually no one has a clue what I'm talking about.

Well, Fuzzster, my self-esteem these days is even more obnoxiously off the hook than it's been in a while, which is saying something. (Sample exchange from NYFF screening: Some Dude GK Met At A Party Back In June: "How have the past couple of months been for you?" GK: "Awful! But I LOOK GREAT!") And you know, I may not be a film critic forever!

I've read that 'every story can have one fantasy premise and no more to be successful' line before from some famous filmmaker or critic - does anyone know who?

I agree with Tom Carson's point earlier - each movie has, shall we say, a tone or pitch of 'realism' that it's attempting to operate under, which allows the filmmakers more or fewer degrees of latitude in how much disbelief the audience can suspend. With Cloverfield, I didn't have a problem with the basic concept, 'a monster attacks NYC and it's recorded on a video camera', I had a problem with the disconnect between the video verite premise and the utterly retarded, boneheaded, only-in-a-movie things the characters were doing. But I don't have a problem when the same things happen in, say, Scary Movie.

Oh, and another movie that had the 'too many premises' issue for me was Hancock, where we first got used to the 'real-life superhero' concept, and then they tossed in a really strained 'origin' story.

On the other hand, to somebody like myself who's not aware of the many inaccuracies and misrepresentations in Saving Private Ryan, I still have no problem enjoying that movie and calling it one of Spielberg's best. Ignorance is bliss, maybe?

The sad souls over to Wells' bullshit emporium would probably complain about Bogart and Bergman, Bogart and Bacall, Bogart and Audrey Hepburn (well, maybe that one's a tad implausible), but as a card-carrying romantic I rarely have such problems. I found the romance in The Town perfectly appropriate and the film a bracingly professional job of filmmaking, especially the Fenway shootout. My Better Half, not previously a fan of Ben or Becky, teared up at the tend.

Glenn, it looks like you might have to start a thread on how Spielberg's SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is a piece of shit. Maybe time it to the upcoming Blu-ray Criterion release of THE THIN RED LINE. You know how much I love it when film criticism gets broken down to my-WWII-movie-masterpiece-is-better-than-your-WWII-masterpiece "discussions."

I'll admit that the framing device of SPR is a little taxing, but the first and last shots of the movie should be enough to let you know what Spielberg is really getting at.

I would agree with you, Aaron, that SPR doesn't deserve much of the abuse heaped upon it -- its portrait of the American GIs seems pretty serious to me, as do Spielberg's intentions -- but I wonder if the complaints about the framing device don't arise from, and aren't often applicable to, Spielberg's work as a whole?

It's always seemed to me, in fact, that MOST of Spielberg's films --Schindler's List, A.I., Munich -- could have ended a scene or two earlier than they did. It's almost as if Spielberg distrusts his own audience, and so insists on repetitively hammering home his point (and providing some sort of resolution)just to make sure everyone "gets" it.

But then I always thought "Jaws" should have ended with Richard Dreyfus six fathoms deep, and Roy Scheider sitting there, alone, on the top of that slowly sinking boat...

William Goldman, isn't he the guy who wrote DREAMCATCHER? Take away ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN and you really don't have much to stand on.

BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID is popular but not a really great American film. It seems to coast on charm. (THE STING is the better Redford-Newman showcase.)

MARATHON MAN is good but hardly a great movie. Speaking of plausibility, how come no one ever mentions that the then 40-year-old Dustin Hoffman looked a little old to play a graduate student?

I've always found THE PRINCESS BRIDE to be a tad overrated. Its snarky approach to fairy tales always seemed to undercut the romance of the story.

As for the GOOD WILL HUNTING rumors? I actually think Affleck & Damon are better writers than Goldman.

I remember Goldman's takedown of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN in Premiere Magazine. Even the snot-nosed 20-year-old version of myself thought he was full of shit. All he did was take cheap shots and complain that the wrong guy was at the cemetery. I actively hated those holier-than-thou takedowns of the movies nominated for Best Pciture that Premiere would run.

Glenn, seeing as you don't have anymore loyalty to Premiere, care to shed some light on Golman's contributions to the mag?